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Cold Salmon Pickled

A dish of leftover salmon marinated in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,078 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cold Salmon Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the leftover salmon and place it in a dish.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a saucepan, boil 1 cup of the cooking liquid from the fish with 1 cup of vinegar.

  2. Add the whole peppercorns, allspice berries, salt, and bay leaf to the boiling mixture.

Pickle and serve

  1. Let the mixture cool, then pour it over the salmon.

  2. Allow the salmon to marinate for 10 hours before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Fish + allspicetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Leftover salmon
Is the protein that the pickling liquid softens and seasons as it marinates.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the fish and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Fish cooking liquid
Carries the fish's own savoury flavour into the pickling liquid.
Whole peppercorns
Add warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that complement the fish.

The step that matters

Cool the liquid before pouring it over the salmon. Pouring boiling liquid over raw or delicate fish would partly cook it unevenly and could soften its texture. Letting the mixture cool first keeps the fish firm while the acid and spices slowly penetrate it during the marinating time.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, fish, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, fish, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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